


Terrible Charmer

by BadassIndustries



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Betaed, Courfeyrac loves his friends, Enjolras Is Bad At Feelings, Grantaire does not actually appear, M/M, and worse at flirting, mild references to a nightclub, over a thousand words of Courf musing about Enjolras' terrible flirting technique
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-22
Updated: 2017-11-22
Packaged: 2019-02-05 12:54:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12795006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BadassIndustries/pseuds/BadassIndustries
Summary: Enjolras is incredibly charming. This is a thing Courfeyrac - who prides himself on being a debonair charmer - has accepted as fact. What is sadly another indisputable fact is that, however charming Enjolras can be when he’s talking about his causes, he’s a terrible flirt. Not in the ‘charming the pants of anybody in sight way’ (that’s Courfeyrac’s thing) but in the other, very horrible to watch way.





	Terrible Charmer

Enjolras is incredibly charming. This is a thing Courfeyrac - who prides himself on being a debonair charmer - has accepted as fact. The sun is hot, moths can navigate using light or geomagnetic clues, Enjolras is terribly charming. These are all established and accepted facts in Courfeyrac’s life. What is sadly another one of those indisputable facts is that, however charming Enjolras can be when he’s talking about his causes, he’s a _terrible_ flirt. Not in the ‘charming the pants of anybody in sight way’ (that’s Courfeyrac’s thing) but in the other, very horrible to watch way.

You’d think his flirting would be as elegant as his face, beauty in motion. It’s not. Instead, the man flirts with all the grace and elegance of a brick wall. A badly constructed, crumbling brick wall who thinks compliments don’t actually need to include signs of visible affection, or even the mention of positive characteristics of the recipient.

Courfeyrac considers himself to be an expert on all his friends’ courting methods, being both a proud self-described wingman and nosy over-involved gossip, but when it comes to Enjolras he’s more of an eternally baffled observer. It’s just so _wrong_. The math doesn’t add up. Here you have Enjolras, beautiful, eloquent, passionate. A person who sits down thinking about what makes a good man and then truly tries to fulfil that ideal. Anyone would get at least a little weak in the knees when getting all that earnest attention pointed their way. Courfeyrac himself must admit he was rather awestruck when he first met Enjolras, with his beautiful hair shining in the sun, protesting the visit of an unsavoury dignitary. Meeting someone who looks like an angel, firmly believes they can make the world a better place and also likes you on sight would be enough for anyone to get a little crush, and Courfeyrac has always been a little weak for a pretty smile. Luckily that tingly, bubbly, exhilarating feeling settled into a more survivable and practical love soon after Enjolras grabbed his arm, looked him in the eye and told him they’d be brothers, and that they were going to try and change the world together. And he was right.

They became Brothers in Arms, comrades in conviction and partners in stopping Combeferre from doing experiments all through the night, because that hypocrite doesn’t think it is a problem when it’s _him_ pulling the all-nighter. But that’s exactly where logic fails him. Because how can a man, who in one speech can inspire enough loyalty and devotion to not only make you agree to start a social justice society with him, but also move in with him despite repeated warnings from his old roommate, be so bad at flirting? How can someone so charismatic respond to someone attractive coming on to him with: “No need, my friends are walking me home when they are done dancing and making out with strangers, but thank you for the offer”. And that’s only if he even notices people are flirting with him. Which he frequently and hilariously doesn’t. You see, Enjolras knows he’s beautiful. He possesses both fully functioning eyes and a mirror, so of course he knows. People also persist in telling him about his own looks like he might not be aware of them, so it’s really not that he doesn’t know his personal advantages. It’s just that somewhere in that brilliant mind of his the logical bridge between ‘this person is hot’ and ‘I’m gonna approach him/buy him a drink/propose/beg him to come home with me’ is more like a gaping, crumbling ravine. When it concerns himself at least. It is the most logical thing in his mind that others love and appreciate his friends and he supports their sometimes bizarre love-lives wholeheartedly, but for himself he’d rather that the strangers hitting on him change their subject to something more interesting than his looks. Like comparing voter registration legislation across nations for instance.

But all that concerns other people flirting with, or rather at, Enjolras. He can be forgiven for the fact that his grace deserts him when confronted with people whose priorities baffle and frustrate him. It’s when Enjolras actively tries to flirt _himself_ when the magic happens. And by magic, Courfeyrac means a social train wreck of epic proportions. Literally. Jehan wrote a poem in epic style about the time Enjolras tried to intentionally and actively flirt with a member of a visiting organisation with a rather stunning smile and very attractive opinions on civil disobedience. ‘A smile like cracked pottery,’ was the phrase Jehan used, which rather says it all.

Now, Courfeyrac is pretty sure that a big part of the problem is that Enjolras isn’t very good with his own feelings. He doesn’t like dealing with feelings that aren’t righteous anger or love for his friends and the future they’re building together. Anything that doesn’t fit into those categories and can’t be easily dealt with just gets left to fester.(Like the experimental cookies Joly baked one time that were so awful not even Bossuet and Grantaire would eat them and that got stuffed in the back of their fridge for several weeks.)

This means that in the highly irregular occurrence that Enjolras has an ‘I admire you for more than your political actions’-emotion, he tries to deal with it by actively running away, blaming others or just whining on Courfeyrac’s couch eating the donuts Courf stocks for whenever his friends are caught into hijinks and need comfort food. Generally, he is his usual charming self only until someone makes him aware that’s he’s flirting accidentally again. At that point the long-involved conversation and arguments with the object of his confused affections dry up and turn into the trademarked Enjolrasian Flirtation. After a long period of panic, denial and hiding behind Courfeyrac whenever that person approaches, that is. After that there is a high likelihood of that most unsubtle and yet confusing flirtation tactic, which Joly eloquently called ‘that thing he does where he states facts in a rather forceful manner while looking like he might be violently ill’.

As might be expected, this technique has never once worked for him. It’s so painful to watch that, for the good of Les Amis, Bahorel (a self-styled love god) has intervened and developed a technique that Enjolras can employ in the unlikely but possible circumstance that their cause depends on their charming someone Enjolras has feelings for. This “flirting-for-the-cause-technique” includes standing in good lighting, definitely _not_ talking and thinking of puppies or similar happy and nonviolent things. This technique has proven to be very effective at fundraisers, but it is Courfeyrac’s eternal annoyance that it is not half as effective as a true Enjolras smile, when he’s just genuinely happy to see you and is visibly thinking of everything he loves about you. The kind of smile he’s incapable of when he’s romantically interested in someone, because he overthinks it to the point of thinking he’s caught the flu. Because that is the only explanation why he might be feeling overheated and weird, clearly. Courfeyrac despairs of him, he really does.

All this to say that when Enjolras finally realised that his five step campaign to become better friends with Grantaire was more of a ‘make R stop needling me and start cuddling me’-plan, the whole thing crumbled as solid structures tend to do as soon as Bossuet enters them. It happened mid-speech during the after-meeting Enjolras and Grantaire Variety and Argument Hour. This revelation would have gone unnoticed, were it not that Enjolras, brilliant orator and Courfeyrac’s best friend (he loves him so much, but not enough that he won’t make fun of this moment for years) was reduced to answering Grantaire’s latest diatribe with the now immortal and frequently quoted words:

“Yeah, well, your face is impossible!”

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first fic I've ever finished, written as a challenge to myself. Beta'd by my amazing sister Sunfreckle who also cheered me on enough that I actually posted this.  
> Also thanks to TheLordofLaMancha for encouraging me to post a story after only having read the first lines of my stories. (Go read and listen to their stuff, they're both amazing writers and podficcers!)  
> Thanks for reading and let me know what you thought!


End file.
